New and Notable Product Design

HIGH FIDELITY LAPTOP SOUND

NEC La Vie S Series LS900/8E with SoundVu®. Introduced in Japan earlier this year, this laptop is the first to incorporate NXT® SoundVu technology that drives the screen outer layer to produce enhanced sound. A pair of small moving-coil exciters on each side of the screen drive the surface. These coils replace SoundVu piezo drivers found on smaller devices, such as cell phones, using the technology because the larger forces needed cannot be produced piezoelectrically. To eliminate "screen shimmer" at frequencies below 200 Hz, a separate subwoofer is built into the laptop body. Group Marketing Director:Andrew Williams, info@nxtsound.comhttp://rbi.ims.ca/3849-541

'PEN' MEASURES EYE PRESSURE

Accutome® AccuPen® Intraocular Pressure Gauge. The tip of this medical handheld device contains a silicon strain gauge sensitive enough to measure intraocular pressures of 10-50 mm Hg. A 0.040-inch diameter stainless steel piston extends from the strain gauge, protruding slightly from the tip of the device. Placing this piston against the eye cornea measures pressure. Packaging and ergonomics were paramount for Carroll Design, which developed the instrument. The tip had to be small for a practitioner to see the eye area. Device grip had to be sure and comfortable, but still house the circuit board and a good size battery for long life.

LEDS LIGHT HOUSE NUMBERS

Eckon Illuminator LED House Number Sign. The efficient circuitry and optics of this patented battery-powered house number sign allow its total cost of ownership to be less than a solar-powered unit. A MOSFET-transistor-driven, flyback inductor drives 10 LEDs by cycling current at several kHz, eliminating an energy-wasting series resistor. The driving voltage is also independent of the battery voltage, which coupled with a timer chip that increases transistor on-time keeps light output constant as the batteries age. A separate photo transistor detects low ambient light to turn on the sign for six hours, but its long time constant will not turn the sign off if temporarily lit by headlights. President:Richard Eckhardt, eckon@earthlink.nethttp://rbi.ims.ca/3849-543

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